There are dozens of ways to earn frequent flyer miles and hotel loyalty points. Setting out on an actual trip is the most conventional way to earn miles and points. You earn frequent flyer miles for taking a flight, but you can also actually earn bonus miles for car rentals and hotel stays as well.
Even if you’re new to earning miles and points, you’ve probably heard people talk about Bluebird as a way to boost earnings potential. It solves a major problem: how to accrue miles and points when paying bills with merchants like your landlord or mortgage company that don’t take credit cards.
How about earning miles for your morning coffee and bagel or dinner out with friends? Enroll in the dining rewards program for your favorite airline and get up to 5 miles per dollar spent.
Isn’t it frustrating when you’ve got a monthly expense or a personal debt to pay and there’s no way to do it other than personal check? You won’t earn miles or points on those transactions and they can add up to a huge loss of rewards over time. What if there was a way to pay the maid, babysitter, or even your landlord and earn miles and points?
I’ve traveled extensively since 2006 when I first discovered the power of frequent flyer miles and hotel loyalty program points. I’ve become the envy of my friends and colleagues who continually ask about the exotic destinations I visit on a regular basis. They are also always intrigued when they hear that it only costs me a few dollars to make these trips and they want to know how they can replicate my success.
Congratulations! You’ve earned enough frequent flyer miles to book a free trip to a dream destination. If you’re lucky, your program offers online booking. More often than not though, you’ll have to actually pick up the phone to make your award reservation.
Some people think that if they don’t fly or stay at a hotel often enough, they have no chance of earning enough miles or points for free travel. That’s simply not true. These days, loyalty programs are a business in and of themselves and offer a myriad of ways to rack up miles from co-branded credit cards to online shopping malls. All you need to do is purchase items you were going to buy anyway through these portals to get bonus points.
It is not all that easy to get to Papeete, Tahiti. Very few airlines fly to the capital of French Polynesia, so using miles to make this trip can be quite tricky. But not impossible. When I first decided that I wanted to visit the Society Islands, I did some research on which airlines could get me there.
Collecting frequent flyer miles is all about one thing: aspiring to travel. That may mean saving up enough miles to visit your family in the Midwest, heading to Paris for Bastille Day, or going even farther afield to an exotic destination like the South Pacific or one of the islands in the Indian Ocean like the Seychelles or Maldives.
One of the first “fancy” vacations my husband and I ever took fancy meaning a bit higher end than a getaway to Walt Disney World or a rustic cabin in Maine was to Hawaii for our 12th anniversary in 2006.
Cathay Pacific’s team of first class cabin stewardesses couldn’t believe that I was able to get my husband onboard this flight for a special 40th birthday vacation and he still didn’t know our final destination.
